Healing the Healer

An article in the NY Times today discusses the difficulty for senior psychiatrists in finding therapy for their own stability's sake. The article asks, "Who does the helper go to for help?" My first thought was, "Maybe they should find a pastor...." My second was, "....and vice versa."

As I read about how the difficulty of finding someone to turn to increases as psychiatrists age, I couldn't help but think about ministers. In seminary we're put into processing groups, encouraged to see therapists, set up with mentors. In the early years of ministry we tend to seek lots of collegial support, from peers and more experienced ministers. With the big emphasis on self-care in ministry these days, I think all of us know that we need to be intentional about seeking space where we can work through our own issues. But then life happens. We get busy. We think we're okay, so we stop talking to people (which of course means that when we're not okay, we're not sure who to turn to). For me, though, I think the biggest factor has been falling into a pattern of always being the helper, and never being the helpee.

I've noticed this lately with my friends around here. I feel like I spend a considerable amount of time listening to them and helping them work through their stuff. This doesn't feel like a burden to me; it is who I am, and it's one of the things that makes me a pastor. Generally I don't really have much that I absolutely NEED to talk about, so we get into a pattern of talking mostly about them. But then there is the odd moment in which I really need someone to talk to, like a few weeks ago when I was seriously questioning my vocation for the first time, or a couple of weeks ago when a personal event threw my emotional state into a complete tailspin. People asked how I was doing, but I barely got two sentences out before they had shifted into talking about their own stuff. I realized as I sat there with tears streaming down my face while one friend rattled blithely on about her week and another completely cut me off when someone else approached her - something is seriously wrong with this picture.

One of the things that might be wrong is some of my choices of friends. I like them to hang out with, but I can't count on them to be there for me. But the other problem is that it becomes increasingly difficult for me, the longer I am the helper, to ask others for help. I've never been good at needing people, and now I am just WAY out of practice.

Tech Insanity

"You’ll have half the participants BlackBerrying each other as a submeeting, with a running commentary on the primary meeting. BlackBerrys have become like cartoon thought bubbles."
~ Phillipe Reines, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

I have a confession: I have terrible technology etiquette. There are certain places where I draw the line; for example, I don't answer the phone or check my text messages in the middle of serious or sensitive conversations, and I don't type emails or texts while my friends are trying to tell me things, even though I am perfectly able to listen and type at once. That's not the point. It's alienating to have a conversation with someone who is staring at a screen instead of looking you in the eye. But my list of technology etiquette breaches is far longer than a list of my virtuous abstinences would be. I do check my calls and texts when I'm in a group and people are not talking directly to me - as if they won't notice that I've checked out momentarily. I text through meetings. And if there's wifi in the meeting space, forget it. My ADD goes full-bore, and while I can do useful things like looking up information and keeping notes, I'm generally also chatting with a friend or two, checking my email, and playing Wordscraper on Facebook.

All of my tech gadgets have in some ways been good for me. It's actually easier for me to pay attention in a meeting if I also have a side line of thought going on to keep me from drifting during boring or frustrating moments. The ability to text a friend from a meeting has kept me from many an unwise comment that may have otherwise slipped through my verbal filter. All of this probably speaks more to my lack of self-discipline than to the benefits of technology. And I know I'm not the first to wonder this, but I've just been thinking lately about the distance created when we're all so very connected through all of these technological media, but basically unable to maintain an in-person conversation in which we don't turn away to a screen at some point. I'm grateful for the ability to stay in touch with friends and family across vast distances, but I'd hope that when we're in the same room again, I could actually be there with them, and not off in the ether somewhere.

Further Adventures in NoDak

I've managed to avoid any further run-ins with bison carcasses (although the prairie dogs are abundant) and aggressive wild horses. I did, in standard graceful fashion, take a nosedive into a massive mud puddle just before going to dinner (Pitchfork Fondue - yowza) with my family. It has rained on and off since we've been here, which is unusual for this area. Hence all the green. Today it only poured once; we're hoping the next cycle holds off long enough for us to have dinner at the campsite rather than fleeing to a restaurant. We are so not equipped for actual camping. I would like to be doing more hiking, but the rest of my family is not equipped for that, either. Come to think of it, I'm not either, really...and that's what comes of packing at 2am for a 6:30am flight.

But all of that is side commentary on the main thing, which is that even though I sometimes wish for a bit more time away from the family, or doing something other than what we are doing, I really love it here in the badlands. I grew up visiting here, and even more so having the love for it nurtured in me through my dad's stories about it. It's really hard to be frustrated or cynical when I'm looking up at these hills, and that, I suspect, is about as much vacation as anyone can expect.

Badlands

It's hard to think of the North Dakota badlands as "bad" right now; there has been so much rain here that everything is green. The wildlife is having a heyday, I'm sure.

North Dakota isn't exactly a tourist destination for most people, but here I am, on the Great Family Vacation Adventure. So far we've mostly spent our time running around Medora and trying to keep our things dry. Yesterday, my brother and I took a hike out into the national park, which proved to be fairly interesting. We took a trail that turned out to be a game trail rather than a human trail, then went back to the real trail and found a dead bison lying smack in the middle of the trail, walked through a creek bed to avoid it, took another trail that ended up being mostly made for guided horse rides, were chased by curious wild horses, somehow managed to avoid running into a herd of bison, and emerged from a rock face onto the park road with very little idea of how to describe to our panicking father where he should pick us up.

Good times...who knows what may be in store for today?

Tales of My Reeling Head

Last night I returned home from a week at General Synod, my denomination's annual meeting.  This was not, as one staffer remarked, my "first rodeo;" I've been around GS eight times now in some capacity or another (although I confess that a couple of times, my role was GS Lurker and Delegate Distraction).  It was, however, my first time as a participant with significant responsibilities beyond deliberating and voting.

Much to my great surprise, my report for the Commission for Women went swimmingly.  Our two recommendations - gender dynamics training for staff and a funded coordinator of women's ministries - passed by significant margins.  I was so surprised, in fact, that I didn't realize they had actually passed until I left the platform and got to the back of the room, and people started hugging me.  Despite having watched the results come in, I had apparently prepared myself so well to lose gracefully that it didn't register that I didn't have to.

But I guess nothing should have shocked me at this GS.  We voted to adopt the Belhar Confession, which means it only has to be passed by 2/3 of the classes to be official.  Frankly, I did not expect this to pass.  At best, I expected it to barely squeeze through after all the bruhaha over whether it would be used to advocate for full inclusion of LGBT persons.  Thank God, people decided the larger vision of the Belhar was worth more than fear about what they might have to work through because of it.  

Those were amongst the highlights of GS for me.  Others included:

- Marlin Vis' closing sermon....even though I was herded out to catch the bus and missed the end.

- Finally getting a roommate whose sleep habits did not involve waking up around the time that I was coming in at night.   

- Catching up with friends, and meeting new ones...just when I thought I already knew everyone in the RCA.

- Good, intelligent, funny, enlivening, late into the night conversation, sometimes made even better by the addition of good Scotch.

I was sad to leave, which I suppose is a bit odd given that it was a week of long, intense meetings and sleeping on a dorm bed for about four hours a night.  But we did some significant work this week, and I got to spend time with good people, and it all just made me happy to be there.

Balancing out the week, there were of course a few things of which I was not so fond.  Parts of GS that I hope will not reappear next year include:

- Celebrations of everything and anything.  I know, I know, I led one of the celebrations.  But I would not have asked for as much time if I had realized that we would spend so many hours recognizing this or that that we wouldn't be able to finish the actual business at hand.

- Lengthy resolutions when we're already late.  I missed the end of the sermon and communion for THAT?

- Early mornings.  Yeah, I know, they're probably not going to start on my time schedule anytime soon, but this 8:00am business kills me.

- The abundance of people who just really like to hear themselves talk.  Also unlikely to change, as we are a bunch of ministers.  

So, now I am home, with a few days to catch up and reorient myself before I leave again - this time on vacation with my family to the North Dakota badlands.  Yes, you read that correctly: North Dakota.  It would not have been my choice.  That said, the badlands are absolutely gorgeous, in a stark and brutal sort of way.  I plan to do a lot of hiking, and a lot of playing with my nieces, who I only get to see a couple of times a year.

Drive-by Blogging

Stopping my my poor, neglected blog to direct you to my other, less neglected blog about goings on at General Synod.